A few weeks ago, Olivia Dean won the Grammy for Best New Artist. While this was certainly her breakthrough year, Olivia has been writing music for ten years, and this Grammy marks a crescendo in her career.

Similarly, Gavin Newsom, California’s governor for seven years, has risen to national attention recently. Amid a hostile federal administration, he has led with bold policies and upheld California values.

It is all building to a potentially historic swan song in his final year leading the world’s fourth largest economy. With major climate and clean energy wins late last year, Newsom has the chance to solidify his environmental legacy.

This blog is a set list for Newsom’s final legislative session. It outlines policies to advance clean energy development, provide funding for clean vehicles while reducing gas prices, reduce toxic air and water pollution, and provide grid resilience and cost savings with electric vehicles. By championing and ultimately signing these bills into law, the governor will Be the Man I (we) Need.

Looks like we’re making up for lost time

California has an achievable but ambitious goal to move to 100% clean energy by 2045. The state has made strides in recent years, powering 2/3 of energy needs with renewable energy.

But delays in the development of transmission – the big wires that bring electricity from clean energy sources to communities– is threatening to undermine this progress.

Last year, UCS combed through utility and state agency reports to uncover the factors that were leading to transmission development delays. But there was a problem. The reasons given by utilities are vague, which is frustrating our ability to identify solutions.

Utilities must stop making us read between the lines. With American Clean Power, we are sponsoring AB 2493 by California Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, to appoint third-party auditors who are empowered to get real answers from the utilities. The bill authorizes the state to use the results of the audit and require the utilities to take action to move these essential transmission projects along.

This will help to make up for lost time and move us to a clean energy future faster.

Need you to spell it out for me

C-A-R-B-O-B. CARBOB (California Reformulated Gasoline Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending), is the funny name California gives its serious gasoline blendstock. It’s the key ingredient for the only gasoline that can be sold in the state.

This blend is cleaner than other gasoline blends which follow standards set by the federal government or other states and is a key part of California’s plan to achieve federal air quality standards. However, declining in-state refining capacity presents a barrier to California meeting gasoline demand.

When a refinery has an unplanned outage, it must bring CARBOB gasoline in from somewhere else to meet gasoline demand. This takes time to call up another refinery, ask it to produce CARBOB, hire a ship, put the fuel on the ship, and then send it to California. While we wait, supply is constrained and consumers face gas price spikes while refineries see their profit margins soar.

California already has a tool to bring fuel online more quickly in an emergency. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has the authority to allow producers to apply for a waiver to sell non-CARBOB gasoline with a fee. This fee is then used to offset emissions associated with the use of a dirtier fuel.

Our analysis shows that if fee revenue is used to replace dirty, old cars (which another analysis of Greenlining Institute and ours shows are disproportionately responsible for toxic air pollution), the state can offset emissions while also transitioning dirty cars to zero emission alternatives.

The problem is that this waiver process has not been used in its 20-plus-year existence. Perhaps it’s not surprising that refiners are content to wait for a slow boat from Asia, since the pain felt by fuel consumers can be a windfall for the sellers. UCS has teamed up with Assemblymember Hart to introduce a bill that will set parameters for when this process must be used to mitigate potential gas price spikes and empowers CARB to update the waiver process to increase utilization.

To spell it out clearly: this bill would help protect consumers from gas price spikes and provide much-needed funding for clean vehicles.

It’s like a type of alchemy

…but not in a good way. I am talking about the over application of nitrogen fertilizers which discharge into waterways creating nitrate pollution. This creates toxic algal blooms that make recreational waterways dangerous to humans and poison drinking water.

To make matters worse, nitrogen from fertilizers can become Nitrous Oxide which is a climate pollutant 273 times more potent than CO2.

We teamed up with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer Kahan to introduce AB 2447 which will require the state to set limits on nitrogen fertilizer application. This bill will avoid this nefarious alchemy and protect California’s water, air, climate and public health. It will help the more than 735,000 Californians who do not have access to safe drinking water.

I kinda like it when you call me bidirectional

UCS analysis has shown that electric vehicles can provide enormous benefits if their battery power is integrated with the electricity grid. If cars conduct bidirectional charging in coordination with the grid (exporting power to homes and the grid) or are simply capable of controlling the times that they charge, we determined they could provide more than $10 billion of annual California energy system savings in 2045.

One snag: our analysis assumes most EVs on the road have grid-integration capabilities, something that is not currently universal in the car market. Thankfully, we have a plan for that.

With Senator Becker and another environmental advocacy group, The Climate Center, we introduced SB 1282 to require the state to conduct a study on the potential benefits to ratepayers and resilience that can be provided by grid-integrated vehicles. If the state determines there is indeed a benefit, they may set a target for grid-integration-capable vehicle batteries to be deployed.

This will allow the state to reap the benefits for the grid by ensuring that we are making grid-integration-capable electric vehicles available.

Come be the man I (we) need

Mr. Governor, come get whatever the climate policy equivalent of a Grammy is and solidify your place as the breakthrough star of 2026. The policies outlined above will keep California moving towards a clean, better future despite the federal administration working its award for Most Hostile Climate “Leaders”.

If you have questions or comments, UCS’ team of scientists, policy advocates, and organizers are around.

Talk to me, talk to me, be the man that I need, Gavin.

Talk to me, talk to me, be the man that I need, Gavin.

Be the man, man, man, man, man.

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